Although a working vaccine was developed around 90 years ago, cases of whooping cough, known by the medical term pertussis, persist in the United States, with about 28,000 cases in 2010 – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bordetella pertussis is a Gram-negative, aerobic coccobacillus of the genus Bordetella. It is the causative agent of pertussis or whooping cough and it is non-motile. There is no zoonotic reservoir thus humans are the only hosts.
Bacterium is spread by coughing and by nasal dripping after an incubation period of 7 to 14 days. Pertussis is an infection of the respiratory system and characterized by a "whooping" sound when the person breathes in. Before the vaccine was developed there were...

Bordetella bronchiseptica is a small, gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium of the genus Bordetella. It can cause bronchitis although it rarely infects humans. It is closely related to pertussis which causes whooping cough and B. bronchiseptica can persist in the environment for extended periods.
Humans are not natural carriers of B. bronchiseptica, which normally infects the respiratory tracts of smaller mammals. It does not express pertussis toxin although it has the genes to do so which...